Daily servings of encouragement those w/ illness or pain, a program of Rest Ministries

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Do You Know the Words?

When you don’t know the words the stress in your life will increase. Shelly shares her recent reminder.

“Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth.” (2 Timothy 2:15)

A few weeks ago, I had an MRI. Luckily for me, they don’t stress me out. I got all settled on the table under the head cage. I had my warm blanket, my little eye mask, and my big comfy headphones already in place.

The technician asked if I had a music request, and I requested Contemporary Christian, just as I always do. Then the table slid smoothly and silently into the tube. The technician spoke to me with instructions, then the music came on.

I was singing along in my mind, lifting praise up to our Father one minute, pleading to Him in prayer the next, depending on the song that was playing. Then the machine switched from the loud vibrating noise to the jackhammers infiltrating your skull sound.

And that was when it happened. I could still hear the music, but the song that came on during that portion was a song for which I did not know the words. And I found that if you don’t know the words the music itself can become a part of the stressful. The music that was meant to distract and soothe me became jarring and discordant when jumbled in my mind with the overly loud noise of the MRI machine.

“And therein lies the lesson,” I thought to myself.

When our lives become confusing with the noise of our pain, when our minds become distracted by the volume of our troubles, when our bodies become bombarded with the sound of a chronic condition, it sure does help to know the words by heart.

Let’s take some time today to put some there.

Prayer: Heavenly Father, thank You for the gift that is Your Word. Let it not be said of us that we don’t know the words! Help us to write just the right words in our hearts and minds today that we will need for the coming days. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

About the author:
Shelly Hendricks is a wife and mother of 2 amazing kids. She was a teacher and a librarian in another life. She also suffers from Intracranial Hypertension, Interstitial Cystitis, and Essential Tremor. She had brain surgery in 2012 and now considers herself to be a ‘bionic woman’ who is learning to walk again. Disability has been hard to deal with, but she depends on God for all strength and hopes to encourage others on this journey, through her blog at http://reneweddaily.com

Shelly thought this song, “Let the Words of My Mouth” with Fernando Ortega was appropriate. As we are considering God’s words being put into our head, we also must ask ourselves what words are coming out of our mouths. Are they building someone up or tearing them down? Something to consider. -Lisa